nor any drop to drink
by BookkeeperThe
Summary: Will's having a hard time. Beverly drives him home. Nothing happens. Nothing at all.


**Notes: set after Buffet Froid, probably on some hypothetical future case which will undoubtedly get overturned by tomorrow night's episode. Title comes from the poem The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge.** **Enjoy, and tell me what you think!**

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Beverly isn't sure how much longer she can watch this.

It's always the same, Jack pushing and pushing and pushing and Will crumbling a little more every day. They circle each other like dogs; Jack advances and Will growls, snaps, a warning nip – _"Keep backing me into a corner and I'll bite." _Jack doesn't stop, and Will's threat proves empty as he cowers, shows his belly, a frightened mutt who's been kicked a dozen times too many.

Sometimes, Beverly wants to punch Jack in the face, or shake him until he sees what he's doing. (She wishes she could shake the feeling that he can see exactly what he's doing, and doesn't care.) She'd do it, except that she's not sure it wouldn't do more harm than good – and she is sure that if they manage to scare Will more than they already have, he'll just slink away and find someplace to die.

She hates the comparison, and hates how apt it becomes when she nearly collides with Will as he flees the conference room. She can almost see the ears flattened against his head in his hunched shoulders, can almost hear a dog's pitiful whimper in his muttered attempt at an apology.

She's going to follow him, but pauses to glance over her shoulder – Jack's silhouette, dark and imposing, confirms her suspicions – and when she looks back, Will is gone. He's attracted a bit of attention on his way out, and it takes her all of ten minutes to find him – outside, in the alley behind the building, sitting on the cold, damp ground with his back pressed against the filthy concrete. He's holding something – his watch – in one hand, and he's shaking.

He doesn't seem to notice her approach, repeating something over and over like a chant, like a prayer. She stops a few feet away, close enough to make out words.

". . . Baltimore, Maryland, Will Graham. 8:42 PM, Baltimore, Maryland, Will Graham. 8:43 PM, Baltimore, Maryland –"

"Will."

He doesn't just jump, he _recoils_, jerking his entire body away from her. He stares at her with wide eyes, throat working, wordless, as if he's forgotten language outside of his lifesaving mantra.

Her voice wasn't loud to begin with, but she softens in consciously.

"Will, come on. Let's get you out of here." She holds out her hand, and waits. (She remembers sitting in front of a PBS nature show, watching a wounded fox limp warily towards a researcher. _"Although the fox is starving, he will not accept the food until he has determined that it is worth the risk. The veterinarian must remain motionless and allow him to approach in his own time."_)

Will twitches and seems to regain some limited command of English, trying to school his face into something like relaxed calm and failing miserably.

"No, I – I'm –"

"No, you're not," she says, more sharply than she intended. He flinches, and she hates herself, hates this alleyway and Jack and the whole damn world. But incredibly, horribly, it works. Will rises, still ignoring her hand, and nods.

"No," he admits, voice quiet and ragged, eyes on the ground. "I'm not."

It's a victory, maybe, but it doesn't feel like one.

"Come on," she repeats. "I'll drive. You know the way home?"

For an instant he looks as if she's gutted him, but it's gone so fast she might have imagined it. He swallows hard, nods again.

"Yeah," he says, and it sounds like defeat.

They don't talk during the drive, except for Will's subdued directions. His house is at the end of a long drive in the middle of a barren field. Distant. Isolated.

They're greeted by a chorus of barks as they step onto the porch. Will rumbles with the key until she takes it from his shaking hands, and when she pushed the door open she finds herself surrounded by a riot of wet noses and wagging tails. There are maybe half a dozen dogs in all, she guesses.

"They're strays," Will explains, between scratching their ears and murmuring nonsensically to them. "Or they were, before I found them."

It's sickeningly fitting, Beverly thinks, and she wonders how Will Graham can be seen by so many people every day and still not be found.

"Will, go sit down."

He frowns at her like he doesn't understand what she's saying, so she takes him by the arm and gently but firmly leads him to the couch. She finds a blanket which doesn't smell too strongly of dog and wraps it around his shoulders.

"Look, just . . ." She sighs. He's still staring at her (sidelong, from behind the rim of his glasses, never quite meeting her eyes) as if she's from another planet, as if he can't comprehend someone taking care of him. "Stay there. I'm going to get you something to eat."

That seems to jolt him a little, at least enough for him to attempt another coherent sentence. One at a time seems about all he can manage at the moment.

"Everyone –" He shakes his head, squeezes his eyes shut, visibly translates. "The dogs. They'll be hungry."

"I'll take care of it," she assures him, and moves to the kitchen before he can protest.

Luckily, the cabinets hold only one kind of dog food – high-end, organic, undoubtedly more expensive, ounce for ounce, than her own dinner. She doesn't bother worrying about portion sizes, just fills the neatly lined up bowls. (She was wrong; there are nine dogs.) She figures one day of over-indulgence won't negate the health benefits of the all-natural, carefully engineered, veterinarian-approved formula the bag boasts about.

In contrast, the fridge contains half a jar of mustard, a carton of milk which expired two days ago, and a casserole dish labeled in Dr. Lecter's handwriting.

Beverly frowns at it as the dogs mill around her feet. When she was young, her grandmother had a cat – a viciously intelligent beast which would play nice until the exact moment her grandmother wasn't looking, and then bite her hard enough to draw blood. Dr. Lecter reminds her of that cat.

Still. Irrational prejudices aside, it's the only thing in the house fit for human consumption – except for a couple fairly impressive fish in the freezer, which she wouldn't know what to do with even if she had the time.

She sticks the casserole in the microwave, imagining with spiteful satisfaction the looked of poorly-disguised horror on Dr. Lecter's face if he found out she had subjected one of his creations to such plebian reheating methods. It's some sort of stew, and she has to admit that it does smell good – but she ate earlier, so she pours Will a bowl and covers the rest to keep it warm. He's getting seconds whether he wants them or not. She can't remember seeing him eat at all today. Or ever, for that matter.

"There's more dog food in this house than people food," she informs him, setting the bowl down in front of him and taking a seat at his side.

He shrugs, twitches.

"More dogs than people."

The sun has almost finished setting, and she gets up to turn on a light. It's just a small lamp in the far corner, with one of those old bulbs, warmer and softer than the florescent ones. They're trying to ban them, she heard. They say they burn too hot and too fast. Inefficient. Dangerous.

Will has finished his stew. She gets him some more, and he accepts it without complaint. It says something, she thinks, that he's allowing her to do this. _"Unfortunately, the fox will only allow the veterinarian to approach when he is so debilitated by injury and hunger than he can do little else but wait for death." _

His hands aren't shaking so badly anymore, but he still looks exhausted, brittle. Like another blow would break him. Like the last one did. She wishes that she were someone else. Her sister, or Dr. Bloom. Someone who would know what to say. Beverly's always been a doer, not a talker, better with computers and cadavers than living, breathing people. And Will Graham . . . he's a mystery to everyone, even (maybe especially) himself. She has a better chance of winning the lottery than getting this right.

She picks up Will's bowl (empty again, and she wishes that meant anything other than that his autopilot was still functioning) and carries it back to the kitchen, washes and dries it, puts it away. There's a dog on Will's lap when she gets back, the little white one. Will scratches its ears absently.

"Pick you up at eight?" she asks, and he jumps, as if startled out of some daydream – hallucination, she thinks, and hates everything. "Or I can stay, if you want."

"No," he says, too quickly, and she can't tell if it's because he's eager for her to leave (before the nightmares start) or because, in reality, he's desperate not to be left alone. Ultimately, all she can do it take him at his word, so she nods.

"Okay. See you in the morning."

She turns to go, but she can't – she _can't. _She won't get it right, but anything is better than this silence.

"Will."

He jumps again, worse this time, as if he thought she was already gone. As if he wasn't sure she was ever there in the first place.

"You matter. Not just what you do at crime scenes – _you_, with your dogs, and your fishing, and your old light bulbs." She's not making sense. He's looking at her like she's crazy. She carries on anyway. This is _important. _"Whatever good you do in the field, it's not worth it if it destroys that you."

There's a long silence, filled with the sound of breathing and the occasional snuffle of a drowsy dog. Will appears to be at loss.

"That's, uh . . ." He swallows, licks his lips, blinks hard. "That's very . . . kind of you to say." It sounds like a question.

"No, it's not," she says firmly. Driving him home was kind. The stew was kind. This – "It's just the truth."

He smiles like he can't remember how, and she knows he doesn't believe her.


End file.
